I think the issue is that AMD's growth seems like it might hit significant headway. Samsung is having issues with their fabrication. We'd seen articles about AMD and Qualcomm wanting to move a lot of their chips to Samsung because TSMC was seen as too much of an Apple shop to their detriment. We've seen articles in the past month noting that Qualcomm is moving things back to TSMC from Samsung because Samsung's yields are so bad. The point here isn't that the sky is falling or anything, but that AMD does face some manufacturing constraints.
We've seen reports that Intel has secured a large amount of TSMC's 3nm production and it's safe to assume Apple has as well. Qualcomm will also be competing for fab space. In that environment, will AMD be able to keep pushing its advantages?
AMD has done great stuff over the past few years. Some of that has been helped by Intel's fab mishaps and TSMC's wonderful advances. That's not to downplay the many other things they've worked hard on. Many companies get openings and never take advantage of them. However, I think it's important to note that the opening is likely going to be narrowing.
If Intel is able to keep AMD away from TSMC's 3nm fabrication long enough for Intel's own fabs to get back to being competitive, what does that mean for AMD? Let's say that Intel 3 launches in mid/late 2023 and it's truly equal to TSMC 3nm. Let's say that Intel keeps AMD away from TSMC 3nm until 2024. What does that do to AMD's growth?
AMD is looking to launch TSMC 5nm Zen 4 processors in the second half of 2022. We've seen reports that TSMC is going to be making 3nm Intel hardware from July 2022. Do we see AMD 5nm processors in September and 3nm Intel processors in December?
Again, I don't want to take anything away from the wonderful work AMD has done. At the same time, I think most people would likely agree that with equivalent fabrication, Intel is as good as AMD if not better. If Intel is able to launch 3nm and box AMD out of 3nm for a while, that can offer Intel a while to leapfrog AMD on process - and possibly enough time to make sure that Intel's fabs get back in the game.
Yes, AMD had great growth in 2021 and they'll have some great growth in 2022. 2023? It seems like Intel might leapfrog AMD there.
Again, the sky isn't falling and I believe that AMD will have a lot of success in the future. It's more that it seems like AMD's growth will get stymied by Intel's use of TSMC and Intel's own fabs catching up. The idea behind AMD's current valuation is that they will become as big as Intel and even a lot bigger over the next several years. However, even with amazing growth in 2022, they won't become as big as Intel. In 2023, it seems like a lot of AMD's advantages turn into Intel advantages as Intel launches on TSMC's 3nm process. 2023 seems like it'll be a great growth year for Intel - at the expense of AMD's growth. I think AMD is in a strong position to continue being a great company with great products. I just think their growth slows as Intel fixes its problems. Of course, this all assumes that Intel fixes its problems.